Kits to covalently label dead cells, allowing cells with permeable plasma membranes to be excluded from analysis in flow cytometry. Includes dye options for fluorescence microscopy.

Live-or-Dye™ Fixable Viability Staining Kits allow discrimination between live and dead cells by flow cytometry or microscopy. Live/dead stains are useful probes to include when analyzing cell surface protein expression by flow cytometry, because they allow intracellular fluorescence signal from dead cells with permeable plasma membranes to be excluded from analysis.

Biotium offers a wide selection of Live-or-Dye™ viability stains spanning the fluorescence spectrum, for maximal flexibility in multi-color analysis. Visit the Live-or-Dye™ Technology Page for more data and information.

How It Works

Live-or-Dye™ Fixable Viability Stains are cell membrane impermeable amine-reactive dyes. The dyes are able to enter into dead cells that have compromised membrane integrity and covalently label free amines on intracellular proteins. The dye labeling is extremely stable, allowing the cells to be fixed and permeabilized without loss of fluorescence or dye transfer between cells. The Live-or-Dye™ staining protocol has been optimized to maximize live/dead discrimination with minimal live cell staining, in order to prevent interference with immunostaining.

Live-or-Dye™ Fixable Viability Stains are dead cell specific in all cell types, including mammalian cells, bacteria and yeast. See our Cellular Stains Table for more information on how our dyes stain various organisms.

Special Application Notes

Live-or-Dye™ 510/550 & 665/685 have been validated for use in spectral flow cytometry on the Cytek® Aurora.

Live-or-Dye™ 488/515, 568/583, 594/614, & 640/662 have been validated in both flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy.

Live-or-Dye™ 787/808 offers the best performance for the 808 laser line, effectively freeing up the channels in the visible spectrum.